ABSTRACT

“THE NAZI EXPEDITION TO TIBET 1938-39. The Search for the Cradle of the Aryans”

The SS-leader and director of the pseudoscientific and racial organization Ahnenerbe Heinrich Himmler promoted and supported the expedition of the German zoologist Ernst Schäfer and his four associates to Tibet in 1938-39. In addition to its racial ideological background, the expedition’s objectives were to create a Tibetan scientific record and to establish diplomatic relations in view of the Second World War. The expedition was crowned with success and the Nazis exploited it propagandistically. However, the pseudoscientific theories, such as about the cradle of the Aryans on the Tibetan Plateau, were not at all innocuous, since they led to the racial cleansing policies in the German concentration camps.